- After the Edmund Fitzgerald’s sinking, a former television reporter spent decades investigating the incident, which still has no solid explanation.
- When the reporter dived to the remains of the ship, he found a crewman lying faceup outside the ship. The crewman may be the only person ever found who had died in the wreck.
- The search for answers is far from over. Modern technology including advances in sonar, remotely operated vehicles, and autonomous underwater vehicles could reveal new answers in far greater detail.
It was late on a July night in 1994 when the Anglian Lady left the dock in Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan, carrying a tiny yellow submersible named Delta. Ric Mixter, a former television reporter and the author of Tattletale Sounds: The Edmund Fitzgerald Investigations, was aboard the tugboat, along with explorer Fred Shannon, Shannon’s wife, Betty, and a crew of 16 that included photographers, boat operators, and submersible pilots.
The Edmund Fitzgerald’s rapid disappearance—amid Lake Superior waves that likely exceeded 25 feet—raised questions from the very beginning. The ship had an experienced captain during a storm that was bad but not unusual by Great Lakes standards. The massive ship wasn’t the only vessel on the lake that stormy night in November of 1975. But it was the only one that sank, despite being built to withstand even worse conditions. It went down rapidly and without any survivors. According to Mixter, the National Enquirer ran a story after the accident claiming that the crew had been abducted by aliens. “That’s how weird this was that nobody came off this wreck,” Mixter says. He’s been researching its demise for decades, trying to figure out what happened in those final minutes.
Aboard The Lady, Mixter passed through the Soo Locks around midnight, finally reaching Whitefish Bay in Lake Superior at dawn. Shannon made the first dive a couple of hours later, on a day so gorgeous that Mixter, wearing a wetsuit, jumped into the water to cool off and get some video footage of Delta’s descent.
He joined the day’s third submersible dive, starting in the late afternoon. When the sub reached the bottom at 550 feet, Mixter was surprised that there was no sand—just mud and rocks. On the hull of the ship, he saw the word EDMUND, now faded and rusted over. As he filmed and tried to take everything in, he suddenly got spooked at the sight of water on the floor of the sub but then relaxed when the pilot told him it was just condensation from their breath. At around 6 p.m., after two mesmerizing hours underwater, Delta returned Mixter to the surface in time for one more dive, which carried the Lady’s owner and his 12-year-old son. They were the ones who spotted the crewman. He was lying face up outside the ship by an open door near the bow on the port side.
As a media frenzy ensued, the find sparked a slew of new questions. Had the sailor tried to escape through the door, or did he fall off the ship? Was his neck broken, as it appeared to Mixter? Had the crewman even been on the Fitz, or was the body there before the ship went down? These new mysteries compounded the bigger one: What happened here?
As the unknowns continue to linger decades later, technological advances have raised a tantalizing possibility: Maybe science could be the key to finding answers. By the time Mixter dived to the wreck, sonar had improved significantly, producing images with better resolution than what the first search crews had been able to get right after the crash. Since then, tools have become far more affordable and accessible, facilitating a new era of mystery solving for shipwreck hunters.
Remotely operated vehicles (ROVs), which could easily cost $100,000 a few decades ago, now go for about $2,000, Baillod says. Submarines, too, are cheaper than they were in the Fitz’s day. Sonar systems have gone DIY. Figuring out where to aim sonar is now easier with help from accurate GPS, electronic navigation, and Google Earth. Scientists are developing AI programs that incorporate data on known shipwrecks in order to locate new ones. Modern searchers also benefit from sonar-equipped autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs) and close-range cameras on ROVs. They can get help from magnetometers, autonomous boats that carry sonar, lidar for shallow water, and photogrammetry, a process of turning two-dimensional images into three-dimensional ones.
If it ever becomes possible to return to the site of the Fitz with the technologies available now, Mixter believes, there’s so much more researchers could uncover. Today’s sonar alone, he says, offers 50 percent better resolution. Without even diving, they could collect new information. “We could tow a sonar over the top and it would show us resolution right down to a two-inch rope,” he says. “We could easily see.”
This story has reporting by Emily Sohn.
October/November 2026
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➡ America’s Radioactive Graveyard Is Quietly Leaking. Scientists Are Racing to Defuse the Threat.
➡ It Flies Like a Plane, Lands Like a Helicopter—and Left 20 Service Members Dead. Why Does This Strange Aircraft Keep Crashing?
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August/September 2026
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➡ The Deadly Steamboat Fire That Killed 1,000 People—and the Corporate Cover-Up That History Forgot
June/July 2026
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➡ 12 Years Ago, This Jumbo Jet Vanished Without a Trace. New High-Tech Ocean Robots May Finally Reveal What Happened.
➡ No Rope. No Mistakes. No Second Chances. The Truth About Free Soloing—and the Climbers Who Never Came Back.
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➡ America Could Be Headed Toward a Future of Ghost Towns
April/May 2026
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➡ Blood Was Everywhere. Inside the Heroic Fight to Save a U.S. Nuclear Submarine After a Deadly Crash.
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February / March 2026
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➡ Archaeologists Found a Skeleton Wearing a Silver Amulet. The Discovery Is Rewriting the History of Christianity.
➡ The Stray Dogs of Chernobyl Are Rapidly Mutating. Scientists Are Still Trying to Figure Out What It Means.
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December 2025 / January 2026
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Featuring:
➡ An Angel of Death Preyed on Hospital Patients for Years.
➡ How America's Most Advanced Lab Brought the Killer to Justice.
➡ A 3,000-Ton Locomotive Was Loose, Unstoppable, and Filled With Toxic Cargo
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➡ Your Consciousness Can Predict the Future, Some Scientists Say
October / November 2025
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➡ Inside the Secret Island Where Death Is Optional
➡ A Legendary Ship Sank Without Warning. Fifty Years Later, Science Could Finally Solve the Mystery of the Edmund Fitzgerald.
➡ This Tech Rebel Threw Away $900 Million in a Municipal Dump. Can Robots Find His Lost Fortune?
➡ Sex Workers, LSD, and Mind Control: What Happened in the CIA's Lab of Nightmares at 225 Chestnut Street
August / September 2025
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➡ The Worst Air Disaster in American History Happened in Broad Daylight. Will More Mistakes Keep Happening?
➡ NASA Has a Plan to Save Earth from Planet-Destroying Asteroids. It Sounds Even Wilder than Science Fiction.
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➡ When You Die, a Psychedelic Molecule Shapes Your Final Moments of Consciousness, a New Theory Reveals.
June/July 2025
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➡ This Undersea Explorer Found America's Greatest Sunken Treasure. Then Things Got Really Weird.
➡ Is Bigfoot Hiding in the Swamps of Florida? This Group Says It Has Proof.
➡ Scientists May Have Gotten the Global-Warming Timeline Seriously Wrong.
➡ A Third State Now Exists Between Life and Death, Some Scientists Now Believe
April/May 2025
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➡ Scientists Successfully Revive a Dead Brain, Redefining the Boundary Between Life and Death
➡ Fingerprints Keep Leading to Wrongful Convictions. Why Do Courts Still Rely on Them?
➡ For 80 Years, the North Sea Held a Deadly Killer. Now Scientists Are Racing to Defuse the Threat.
➡ They Built the Quietest Room in the World. Why Is Everyone So Afraid to Step Inside It?
February/March 2025
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➡ This Guy Says He Knows the Truth About UFOs. Should We Believe Him?
➡ Scientists Are Now One Step Away From Solving Nuclear Fusion—And Unlocking Unlimited Energy.
➡ A Million-Dollar Heist Rocked the Art World— Then Amateur Sleuths Cracked the Case
➡ A New Era of Missile Warfare Has Begun—and the U.S. Isn’t Ready
December/January 2025
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➡ A Clue Hidden in a 400-Year-Old Map Might Have Just Solved One of America's Greatest Mysteries
➡ Inside the Deranged Plot to Smuggle Cocaine With an Armed Soviet-Era Submarine
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➡ Your Consciousness Can Connect With the Whole Universe
October/November 2024
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➡ Untold Secrets Reveal How the Castle Bravo Test Became America’s Worst Nuclear Disaster
➡ This Body Was Found Preserved on a Block of Ice in a Colorado Shed. It Had Been There for 30 Years.
➡ It Was Supposed to Be America's Greatest Victory in Space—Then It Became NASA’s Worst Nightmare
➡ The Sidewinder Missile Ruled the Air—Then the Soviets Stole the Design
August/September 2024
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➡ The Army's Machine Gun Is No Match for Cheap Chinese Body Armor. So It's Making a New One.
➡ Russia Built a Stunning Rival to the Supersonic Concorde—and Then It Fell From the Sky
➡ A Navy Admiral Says Underwater UFOs Are a Threat—and the Pentagon is Withholding Secrets
June / July 2024
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➡ 4 Black Eggs Have Surfaced From the Depths of the Ocean— and the Mysterious Creatures Inside Are Baffling Science
➡ A $2 Million Treasure Appeared in a Kentucky Cornfield. No One Knows Where It Came From.
➡ A Million-Dollar Heist Rocked the Art World— Then Amateur Sleuths Cracked the Case
➡ A New Era of Missile Warfare Has Begun—and the U.S. Isn’t Ready
April May / 2024
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➡ How the FBI Took Down the Internet's Most Dangerous Website
➡ A Staggering New Clue Emerges in the D.B. Cooper Hijacking Mystery
➡ The Wildest Prison Break in U.S. History
➡ The Secret to a Perfect Lawn Lies in One of These 10 Electric Lawnmowers
February / March 2024
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➡ Inside the Final Fiery Minutes of the East Palestine Train Wreck
➡ Scientists Believe They’ve Unlocked Consciousness—and It Connects to the Entire Universe
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➡ The 8 Best, Expert-Recommended Solar-Powered Generators
Special Issue: Nukes
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➡ How Deadly Nuclear Waste Is Menacing This St. Louis Neighborhood
➡ The Terrifying History of Russia's Nuclear Submarine Graveyard
➡ Strange Mutations in Stray Dogs Near Chernobyl Suggest They Are Rapidly Evolving
➡ America Dumped 56 Million Gallons of Radioactive Material Along the Columbia River—Then It Started to Leak
December 2023 / January 2024
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➡ A New Clue In Amelia Earhart's Disappearance Emerges From the Ocean
➡ How an Alleged Water Bandit Stole $25 Million in Water from Thirsty California Farms
➡ A Coal Mine Exploded and 300 Miners Died. What Went Wrong?
➡ China Just Built a Terrifying New Aircraft Carrier and May Soon Dominate the Seas
October / November 2023
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➡ How Rats Took Over Our Cities—And Why We Can't Stop Them
➡ This Language Is on the Verge of Extinction. Can It Be Saved?
➡ America's Deadliest Warplane Returns in a New Doomsday Role
➡ This Amateur Diving Group Kept Solving Cold Cases. Then Its Own Skeletons Surfaced.
➡ The Scientific Breakthrough That Could Put an End to Gray Hair.
August/September 2023
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➡ Immortality Is in Reach. But It’s Not What We Imagined.
➡ Your Next iPhone (and Nuclear Subs) Will Be Powered By Space Metal
➡ Scientists Now Think We Can Build a Warp Drive
➡ China and Russia Have Cracked the Stealth Code. Can the U.S. Regain Air Dominance?
June/July 2023
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➡ The 747 Ruled the Skies—Then One Slammed Into a Mountain
➡ The Race to Contain AI Before Singularity
➡ These Florida Homes Aren’t Just Hurricane-Proof—They’re Blueprints for the Future
April/May 2023
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➡ AI Is on the Cusp of Taking Control—This Is How It May All Go Wrong
➡ There’s No Weapon Russia Fears More Than the HIMARS Rocket Launcher
➡ The Nuclear-Submarine Arms Race Is Getting Intense, and the U.S. Just Took a Massive Leap Forward
➡ Iran Is Becoming a Drone Superpower—By Stealing American Technology
February/March 2023
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➡ The Greatest Treasure Hunt in American History Ended—and Then Things Got Weird
➡ These Are the High-Powered Weapons Ukraine Needs to Send Russia Running
➡ The Secret War to Take Out Iran’s Fleet of F-14 Jets
➡ Russia Is Trying to Intimidate the U.S. with Hypersonic Missiles and Big, Scary Nukes—And It's More Than a Threat
December 2022/January 2023
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Featuring:
➡ Is Death Real?
➡ China and Russia Are Dominating the Hypersonic Arms Race—And It’s Not Even Close
➡ When the South Fork Dam Broke, a Pennsylvania City Washed Away. Which Town Is Next?
➡ The Navy’s New $13 Billion Aircraft Carrier Is Already Obsolete. This Weapon Can Save It.
October/November 2022
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➡ Can America's M1 Abrams Still Compete With China's and Russia's Latest Battle Tanks?
➡ Inside the Final Minutes of the Concorde Disaster—and How It Doomed Supersonic Travel for Decades
➡ How the Massive Cargo Ship Felicity Ace Sank, Taking $400 Million Worth of Exotic Supercars With It
➡ I Turned My Old Gas-Guzzler Into a Zippy EV for $15,000
August/September 2022
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➡ Cosmic Secrets of the 17 Most Powerful Mega-Telescopes on Earth—and Beyond
➡ Can the Air Force's Secret, Hypersonic Jet Reclaim the Skies From Russia and China?
➡ For 50 Years, the Zodiac Killer's 340 Cipher Stumped the FBI—Then Three Amateurs Cracked the Code
➡ America's Most Fearsome Howitzer Has Entered the War in Ukraine
June/July 2022
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➡ Every Single Drone Fighting in the Skies Over Ukraine
➡ How to Buy a New Car in 2022 Without Getting Fleeced
➡ This Megastructure Could Keep Us Alive Forever
➡ The Race to Revolutionize EV Batteries